Hattix

Riding home today, I notice a column of light in the sky extending up from the setting sun. It’s a sun pillar. What struck me was that it seemed nobody else at all noticed it and it was pretty bright.

Ten minutes later I got home, grabbed a camera and even though it’d faded away a bit, I managed to get an image of it. (Click to embiggenificate)

These things are notorious for not showing up well in photographs but hey, that’s why we have Photoshop right? A little digital shenaniganry and the photo’s not at all like you’d see it with your eyes but shows the sun pillar much better.

What’s going on here then? Part of the clue is at the top of the image - cirrus clouds. They’re made of ice crystals at high altitude and these crystals form a hexagonal cylinder shape. If they get long, they’re called rods but if they stay short, they’re plates (Snowflakes have the same basic shape) and it’s these plates which cause the sun pillar. As sunlight reflects off the bottom of them, they glint. As they’re very distant and very small, we see their combined light as a glow. As they’re falling from the cirrus clouds, and because they’re falling flat, we see the glow as a column or a pillar.

Look up more, it’s amazing what you can see there.

Note to self: Next time, check the live satellite images for errant thunderstorms before going for a walk in the 2am clear night air.